


The World is Grey

by RandyPandy



Series: Deep in the Realms [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Camilla!Ophelia, Character Study, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gaius and Asugi are the same person, Gaius!Owain, Kagero!Asugi, Nohr | Conquest Route, With something Revelation-esque afterwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23727037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandyPandy/pseuds/RandyPandy
Summary: For all that Asugi's father, Saizo V, had spouted about blood and lineage, his father certainly didn't seem to care too much for him, now did he? He promised himself that if he ever had kids, then he would be a better father.
Relationships: Camilla/Odin (Fire Emblem), Guire | Gaius/Liz | Lissa, Kagero/Saizo (Fire Emblem)
Series: Deep in the Realms [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709014
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	The World is Grey

**Author's Note:**

> This ties into [Love and Be Silent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457967) as well as [Glowing Silver Star](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602069). Though it's not necessary to have read them, the three do take place in the same universe.

By now, his hair had faded back to its natural orange. Asugi ran his fingers through the strands as he glanced in a mirror. With the dye gone, he no longer had any connections to his parents. For all that Asugi's father, Saizo V, had spouted about blood and lineage, his father certainly didn't seem to care too much for him, now did he? He promised himself that if he ever had kids, then he would be a better father.

His mother wasn’t blameless either, and he thought that she _had._ Nope. They had tossed him into this realm, left him in the care of a single person that viewed him as a _job_ , and then barely came to see him, taking months in between visits.

Asugi thinned his lips. If they were going to be that way, he was _certainly_ going to do whatever he wanted, then! If they cared more, they would have been around more while he was growing up!

The first thing that he was going to do was change his name. 'Asugi' was a name that his mother Kagero, another Hoshidan ninja, had suggested, upon him first confessing to her that he felt really annoyed being called 'Saizo VI' like his father. He was his own person, thank you!

'Gaius' worked for now, and even sounded neutrally Valmese or Ylissean. If he had to change it again letter, then he would, but for now... this was fine.

Even if he was angry with his parents for abandoning him, he still had the training of a ninja. And like a ninja, he could put that stealth to some good use.

* * *

Breaking into the Castle Ylisstol’s treasury? No problem for master ninja-slash-thief Gaius!

They’d even offered to let him keep anything he found there, as his pay cut (which, hopefully, he could sell for some sweets; his sugar supply was running low, and he _needed_ the sugar in order to keep his mind clear from confusion or irritability, and to stop him from feeling shaky, sweaty, or chilly); in return, he was to obtain some strange shield that was kept in the treasury while they kept the soldiers and the Shepherds busy.

Unfortunately, when he overhead his employer talking to the others, his blood had run cold.

 _Kill_ Exalt Emmeryn, who was such a gentle and sweet lady? Never! He had no qualms about robbing her blind and lining his pockets with some money – the rich had enough money to spare – but killing? He drew the line there!

The thought that his parents would be horrified crossed his mind, but he violently shoved it away. He was here, without them, and he had to make the best of the situation. And the worst part? The moment he stepped inside the castle, the Shepherds and the guards would consider him an enemy, and attack him!

This was the situation with Funke and the Duke of Themis all over again! (He sometimes wondered whether his daughter Maribelle was still alright; oh, he’d have to apologize for what he had done with her father.)

Thankfully, at the moment, fortune smiled upon Gaius. He’d encountered the Exalt’s brother and sister, Prince Chrom, and after smooth-talking with Chrom and pretending he wanted the candies that the prince had dropped, the prince had agreed to let him assist them.

Sure, they could think that his motives were for the candies (and they did help, he’d popped one in his mouth instantly and some of his anxiety had died down after a minute), but his parents would never forgive him if he had aided and abetted royal assassins.

* * *

Damn Gangrel. Damn Walhart. Damn Validar. Damn _Grima_.

His parents were lucky that _they_ hadn’t had to deal with a _Fell Dragon_ at least.

But, Gaius supposed, if none of this had ever happened, then he wouldn’t have married Lissa and had had Owain as a son. The future Owain was _exactly_ the opposite of a proper ninja. He was bright, bold, loud, and not afraid to speak his mind, and Gaius couldn’t help but feel smug at that.

Exactly like his mother Lissa, and nothing like him.

Gaius would not tell him about the Saizo lineage and the importance that his family had held; but he would tell him the names of his grandparents, Saizo and Kagero, and maybe a few other things and that was that. It wasn’t as if they were around for Owain to be meeting anytime soon, anyways.

“So grandmother and grandfather are like the legendary ninjas of Chon’sin?” Owain asked, his eyes wide with shock and curiosity.

Gaius snickered. “Yep, they are, and I inherited their abilities. How else do you think that I’m able to slip in and out just like one when I’m working? They even have names like the ninjas of the old, Saizo and Kagero.”

“That is _so_ exciting!” Owain grinned at him. “What about you, dad? You have such a _normal_ name – don’t you have a more legendary one like my fabled grandparents?”

Well, there was no harm in it. Gaius smirked and ruffled Owain’s hair – the exact same orange color as his own. “Hm, fine, but don’t tell anyone, right?”

“Not a word shall escape my lips!”

“It’s Asugi.”

* * *

“Father! I have returned!”

Gaius grunted as Owain (the one from the future, not his rambunctious four-year-old) threw his arms around him, nearly knocking him over. “Good to see you too, Owain—what in the name of Naga are you _wearing_?”

The older version of his son was wearing the most ridiculous, outlandish outfit that exposed his chest, and it was the same garish yellow as the rest of his wardrobe tended to be (little Owain was already showing signs of wanting yellow clothing ‘like big brother!’ and between the Owains and Lissa, Gaius had resigned himself to seeing yellow on a regular basis). Owain ignored the question and didn’t say anything for several second, which was odd, instead holding Gaius closer to him. “I need a moment, Father.”

Gingerly, Gaius patted his son’s head. Owain’s hair was, oddly enough, bright yellow and closer to Lissa’s shade instead of the orange color that it naturally was. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“You’re… you’re alive, thank Naga.” Owain took a deep breath. “For a moment while I was there, I thought that I had…” He cut himself. “Where is Mother?” he asked as he released Gaius. “We should go down and accompany Uncle Chrom and Inigo; there is a lot going on in the main hall.”

“Just putting your younger self down for a nap,” Gaius told him, raising an eyebrow as he grabbed a wrapped sugar cookie from his pocket. He unwrapped it and broke the cookie in half and offered half of it to his son. Owain gratefully popped it into his mouth, chewing on it.

“I had traversed through worlds to the fabled lands of Hoshido, Nohr, and Valla, along with my bosom companions Inigo and Severa,” Owain said, his voice quieter than normal. “I met Saizo and Kagero – Grandfather and Grandmother – but Hoshido and Nohr were locked in a bloody war at the time. And I had no choice but to fight for Nohr.”

Gaius stilled. “…And?”

(He ignored that he had never heard of a place called ‘Valla’. Owain had traveled to Hoshido and Nohr? He’d met his parents?)

“I had a job to do,” Owain said, sounding exhausted. “…And Grandfather was killed defending Prince Ryoma of Hoshido. I couldn’t save him.”

The cookie in Gaius’s hands crumbled as he clenched his fist, the pieces falling to the ground. _‘You damned fool, Dad.’_

Why wasn’t he surprised? That his _own father_ would put his duty above the fact that he had a son living somewhere? Gaius hadn’t seen the man in years, and whenever he _had_ seen him, they hadn’t gotten along all too well. Saizo had tried to instill in him the discipline and training to become a ‘proper’ Saizo VI, which ‘Asugi’ had completely rejected.

The way he felt upon learning that Saizo was dead…

It was a mix of disbelief (Saizo was a _master_ ninja, how could he have died?) and numbness (this was his _father_ that had died, he should mourn him, why couldn’t he feel anything?). He stared at Owain as the other glanced down at his feet, not saying anything else.

“But,” Owain said quietly, jerking Gaius out of his thoughts, “Grandmother is alive and in the palace.”

* * *

Once he, Lissa, and the older Owain had gone down to the main hall, they had seen exactly what was going on. As it turned out, Inigo, Owain, and Severa had gone to the other world in order to assist a dragon named Anankos with stopping his insane half. The time dilation didn’t make sense to anyone except possibly Laurent and Miriel (who had attempted to explain but had given up as nobody could understand), but the princes and Severa had gone back to a period _before_ the war had begun.

Gaius grimaced. It was just like Owain to go off and try to be a damned hero by facing down _another_ apocalyptic world-ending dragon.

(And he’d gotten married, to boot! He would have lectured him about hasty decisions had he not done the exact same thing; like father, like son, apparently. His daughter, Ophelia, was a delight and quickly became fast friends with little Owain, though he wasn’t sure what to make of his wife, Princess Camilla of Nohr.)

The situation had been extremely complicated, and despite doing their best in Nohr, the three hadn’t been able to stop the countries from going to war and for Nohr to nearly destroy Hoshido, with the country being severely damaged and three members of the Hoshidan royal family dying along with countless soldiers and several retainers.

His own father, Saizo V, had been one of the ones that had perished. Through some miracle, his mother Kagero had been spared.

Gaius wasn’t sure what to feel right now.

He could see Chrom and Olivia there, along with Lucina, Inigo, and Severa (the elder ones; the younger royal children weren’t present, and he had to assume that they’d been shooed away). He squinted at the obvious foreigners that seemed to be in charge – a manakete woman with grey-haired man, a blond man standing near Severa, and a red-headed couple that reminded him of Cordelia and Severa.

Behind them were other people – the other members of the Nohrian royal family (including Owain’s wife), and his aunt, Princess Sakura, along with people that appeared to be their spouses and retainers and servants. He was fairly sure that the green-haired ninja with the pink-haired woman and girl was his uncle Kaze, whom he had never met, but could tell from how much he looked like his father. He didn't recognize boy or girl with the pale blue hair, though they looked a bit like Inigo. And behind them all, nearly hidden and would have been missed by Gaius had he not been trained as a ninja when he’d been a child, a familiar woman with dark brown hair.

His eyes flickered over to her to let her know that he had seen her, and she stared at him for a moment, recognition flickering through them before giving a small smile and turning her attention back to where Chrom was speaking with the others.

* * *

There was no one in the room aside from himself as far as he could tell, now, but he was still a ninja no matter what. It was inevitable that he would be able to detect her.

“Mom,” he said calmly.

“Asugi. Or is it Gaius now?” Kagero asked, stepping out of the shadows and facing him.

“Yep. It’s been Gaius for the past fifteen years,” he told her. “And it’s always going to be Gaius now.”

He wasn’t sure where to start. How did one speak to parents that had technically abandoned them for years? Luckily, Kagero made the decision for him.

“Odin- Owain.” Kagero glanced at the door, and then turned back to him. “He never said a word about who he was to us. And yet he made sure that I lived.”

‘Odin’? What kind of name was _that_? Despite it all, Gaius had to know how Owain had interacted with her. “...I heard about Dad from Owain. What happened to you?”

“Just after Prince Ryoma fell, he came across me and we ended up fighting, and he defeated me. But instead of killing me, he quietly asked me if I wanted to see ‘Asugi’ again.” Kagero paused. “At first I thought it was a trap; why would a Nohrian know about you, unless he had killed you? But he said a few things that assured me that he really did know you, so I said ‘yes’. He smiled, knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was elsewhere and the Hoshidan-Nohrian war was over.”

“He’s a good kid,” Gaius said with a shrug. “Took after his mom far more than he took after me, but I figured, that’s for the best, y’know? I wasn’t the best role model.”

Kagero explained a few more things to him – such as how, after Ryoma’s death and the end of the war, she had been greeted with open arms by now-Queen Hinoka and her husband, King Subaki. How, with the deaths of so many Hoshidans and Subaki’s new status as king, there were still positions for retainers open, and therefore she had taken the job of becoming one of Subaki’s retainers; even though she’d failed with Ryoma, she wasn’t going to fail again.

“Never would’ve guessed that Sunshine and Cherry were the princesses of Hoshido,” Gaius muttered as he shook his head. “I fought and breathed and lived and almost died with them,” actually _did_ die in one timeline, “and had no idea.”

“We befriended each other when Hoshido and Nohr joined forces to deal with Anankos, and I remember he was one of the only ones that even knew the threat that was going on. It was for the best that our two opposing sides worked together, and he had already shown that he was better than most Nohrians in my eyes.” A small smile flickered across her face. “He was particularly fond of my artwork.”

Gaius blinked, and then laughed as he remembered his mother’s style of art. “Yeah, he’d be the sort. Goofball of a kid, he is.”

The two of them glanced out the window; in the courtyard, Owain and Camilla were chatting with Lissa, while Ophelia and little Owain ran around chasing each other and screaming attack names at the top of their lungs, Ophelia’s wavy lavender hair a sharp contrast to little Owain’s bright orange. At one point, little Owain ran too close to Camilla, who immediately scooped him up and squeezed him against her while cooing over how cute he was. Gaius snorted at the scene.

“His daughter looks like she’s the same way,” Kagero said with a chuckle. “Regardless… when I got the opportunity, I finally asked him the question that had been burning in my mind: how did he know who you are, and why did he save my life?”

“He told you the truth.” It wasn’t a question.

“He told us all the truth,” Kagero said, fiddling with her scarf. “They all did. That he was mine and Saizo’s grandson. That Selena was the Queen and King’s granddaughter through Princess Caeldori. Laslow didn’t say anything, other than that he was Odin’s cousin. But all three of them insisted that we had to work together, and… I wasn’t sure what to think. I thought about you, and how long I had left you in here, that if I did visit you again, your father wouldn’t be accompanying me.”

“I’ve had time to think about it over the years. But I moved on,” Gaius said, and Kagero sighed.

“That is what I thought. I expected nothing less.”

“So… you saw me. What are you going to do now?” Gaius said, still trying to keep himself detached. This woman hadn’t visited him in over _fifteen years_. And yet… could he really stay too mad at her?

Sure, he would always be angry that he had technically been abandoned here in this realm. But he’d managed to make a good life for himself; he’d joined the Shepherds, he’d made friends, had become a prince by marriage to his amazing wife, and had amazing children.

“I think,” Kagero said, her voice slow, “if it’s alright with you, I would like to get to know you all over again. You and Lissa and your children.” She looked confused. “Are they both really named Owain?”

“Long story. I’ll explain later.”

“Right…” She still looked puzzled, but let it go. “Is it alright?”

Gaius grabbed a piece of candy and popped it into his mouth so that he could think clearly. A fond smile crossed Kagero’s face when she watched him do that, but didn’t comment on it. Did he want her back in his life? It had felt quite fulfilled with everything that he had, but he couldn’t deny that he at least wanted to give her one more chance, to get to know her…

Well, there was only one answer he could give, then.

“…Yeah. Sure, mom.”

She exhaled, relieved. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Saizo x Kagero:** A Birthright OTP, plus they canonly used to be a couple before the game. Also brings whole new meaning to the Conquest chapter where Saizo is trying to save her. Gaius is 100% a ninja boy.
> 
>  **Gaius x Lissa:** Orange-haired Owain has really been growing on me, and I really liked Gaius and Lissa’s Supports. Plus, this gives Owain an actual connection with Kagero. I also found Odin and Kagero’s Supports incredibly cute and heartwarming (even without the S-Support) and some of Odin’s best that don’t involve Leo or Laslow.
> 
>  **Odin x Camilla:** I know this isn’t a common pairing, but I was not very happy with the people I could possibly pair Odin with when looking at Conquest-only characters (and while Odin and Elise have cute C-A supports, Odin strikes me as way older than Elise, which puts S-Supporting them firmly into NOPE territory for me). Then I read his supports with Camilla and I found them… surprisingly wholesome? Not once does she make fun of him for his shtick, and given that he’s her brother’s retainer, she’d know that despite his oddities, he was highly intelligent and brought results (hell, she’d probably be able to tell that it was an act).
> 
>  **Saizo’s Death and Kagero’s Survival:** To get to Ryoma in Conquest, you have to kill at least one of them (killing the other one is optional). I chose to kill off Saizo, since he’d be more likely to die defending Ryoma and would hold more of a grudge against Nohr (and would be more likely to reject Owain; Kagero would be upset too, of course, but she’s always seemed less aggressive than Saizo to me) and then debated whether to kill Kagero. I didn’t because I felt it would be far too heartbreaking compared to what happened with Caeldori/Cordelia and Rhajat/Tharja, not only for Gaius who would lose both parents, but for Odin/Owain, who would be part of the army that killed both of his grandparents. So I chose to have Kagero be the one that I spare in Conquest, while Laslow/Inigo is the one I spare in Birthright.
> 
>  **Asugi's Paralogue:** Saizo wasn't around to yell at Asugi in this verse like he was in Birthright. So Funke was able to go a little farther, and I decided to headcanon this into the incident with Maribelle's father.
> 
>  **Other Pairings:** I tried to hint at several other pairings not already mentioned in the other two fics; these pairings are Laslow/Azura, Chrom/Olivia, Kaze/Felicia, and Silas/F!Corrin. They are not tagged because they aren’t prominent/important in the fic.


End file.
